


One Foot

by tikii



Category: To The Moon (Video Game)
Genre: Eventual Romance, F/M, Fluff and Angst, Light Angst, Songfic, This makes me want to scream im sorry, This was amazing to write my bABIES, To the Moon; the Songfic, flangst, i should be doing other things but oh well, lots of fluff, pure babies
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-04-23
Updated: 2018-04-23
Packaged: 2019-04-27 00:21:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,487
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14413626
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/tikii/pseuds/tikii
Summary: In which we see the relationship between Neil Watts and Eva Rosalene





	One Foot

**Author's Note:**

> you; tiKI WYD YOU'RE SUPPOSED TO BE UPDATING YOUR FIRE EM-  
> me; sssSHHHHH  
> I couldn't pass up on the opportunity to write about my precious children from to the moon like excuse me i would take this over fire emblem anyday because you could be so creative with this game.  
> with that being said  
> i highly reccomend to the moon because its such an amazing narrative and its so well written and the characters and the story is just awesome - not to mention the music which i love very much.  
> I also included some of my personal headcanons so uhhh  
> so here's a 3500+ word fic about my beautiful children  
> with that said, enjoy!!

**_/Not a soul up ahead and nothing behind.. There's a desert in my blood and a storm in your eyes - Am I the king of nothing at all? Then you're the queen of nothing at all/_ **

 

When Eva was paired with Neil Watts for the first time, she couldn’t stand him. The way he spoke, the way he annoyed her, how he never took anything seriously - she was seriously going to loathe this job, she decided. But she had already signed the paper so there was no going back now. 

 

He was especially annoying when he just barged into her office out of nowhere, blasting various kinds of music and screaming at her to ‘get up and get going’, or that she was too tense and that she needed to relax. This was a work space! He was absolutely crazy acting like this! 

 

What she didn’t know is that the almighty Neil Watts just wanted a friend. She thought he was just doing this to be an annoying, infuriating partner, but when he stopped doing it on her account, she kind of… missed it. 

 

(No she didn't. She just… she just thought it was too silent. Yeah - too silent.)

 

So she told him that he could start doing it again. The way his green eyes lit up at the sound of her saying that while leaning against his door frame made the next week all worth the annoying music and the yelling.

 

“I’m the king!!” He had yelled when barging into her room one day. Scoffing, she rolled her eyes, turning her swivel chair to face him.

 

“Yeah - the king of nothing at all.” She retorted. The phone began ringing before he could reply, and as she moved to pick it up, he replied.

 

“Well… I suppose that means you’re the queen of nothing at all.” 

 

(She ended up not picking up the phone due to her entire system shutting down at the sound of that.)

  
  
  


**_/Well I remember the fight and I forget the pain - I got my hand in your pocket and my key on your chain… Am I the king of nothing at all? Then you're the queen of nothing at all/_ **

 

Neil remembers the first actual fight they had. Sure, Eva and him had had their little fair share of arguments, but this was the first actual fight they had. And it was on their second job ever! 

 

Traversing through memories could leave someone either extremely tired or extremely impatient - especially on your first couple of jobs. Neil was sporting the biggest headache of the century and Eva seemed really irritated, her patience wearing thin over the tiniest things.

 

Neil doesn’t even remember what he said to her that got her so angry - this felt like centuries ago. But it must’ve been bad, because she slapped him square in the face before leaping back using the momento they had - leaving Neil alone and with no memory links. He was mad too, so he took this time to take a breather before traversing ahead, going as fast as he could in order to catch up to his partner.

 

(He tried to ignore how his cheek - and heart - stung)

 

When the world around him started to change, he knew that Eva had transferred the desire to his childhood, and that dream was becoming true.

 

Well - at least they got the job done.

 

Eva didn’t even spare him so much of a glance on the drive back. Even after apologizing profusely and begging for forgiveness, she didn’t even look at him. He brushed his fingers against the spare key in his pocket before gulping, his cheeks feeling hot. When he parked in front of her house to drop her off, he spoke nervously.

 

“Um, hey… I know I have no right to do this, but here.” He held out the key and averted his eyes, not wanting to explain himself. Eva raised an eyebrow at him, commanding him to explain. Inwardly groaning, he continued. “I feel like… like we’ve created some sort of bond over the past couple of months and um… I just want you to know that you’re welcome anytime, okay? Consider this a legendary gift from the legendary Watts!” 

 

The key was taken and the door was slammed.

 

Neil thought when he was driving home ‘hey… at least she took the key.’

 

Neil remembers walking into his office the next day, mentally preparing to go into his partner’s office and giving her a speech (the great Neil Watts hardly ever begs for forgiveness!), but he was stopped short by a note and a small key on his desk. Frowning, he picked up the note and immediately recognized his partner’s handwriting.

 

/ **_Hey Dumbass,/_ **

 

(Oh he already knew the note was going to be good.)

 

**_/ Hey Dumbass,_ **

**_You’re a dumbass, you know that? And annoying. And stupid. But… I suppose that’s who you are, and I won’t judge. Thanks for the key. I wanted to do that last night, but honestly you pissed me off so much I backed off. And then you beat me to it._ **

**_Thanks._ **

**_But here, idiot. Have the key. Consider it a great gift from the great Rosalene._ **

**_P.S. I forgive you._ **

**_From,_ **

**_The Queen of Nothing at All/_ **

 

Neil fumbled with his keychain, trying to put the key on it. Blushing brightly, he repeated the last sentence in his mind over and over again. Did she seriously call herself the queen of nothing at all? Maybe she had taken a liking to him after all!

 

“Hey. Idiot.” A voice roused him from his thoughts as he moved to put his keychain in his pocket. He didn’t even have to turn around to know who it was.

 

“New client?”

 

“New client.”

 

“Let’s roll.”

 

**_/Oh, through the wilderness - You and I we're walking through the emptiness. Oh, my heart is a mess -Is it the only defense against the wilderness?/_ **

 

For this job, you needed to steel yourself for anything that’s to come. Oncoming emotions? Squash or ignore them. Not prepared or didn’t see something coming? Hah, trick question - you always had to be prepared, and you always had to see something coming.

 

Neil watts was the complete opposite of that, Eva noted.

 

He would always yell at the person they were working for, he would scream in fear or whine with discomfort or even sniff in sad time while Eva just stood there, feeling like an emotional mess. She couldn’t show these emotions because that would just stall their mission - failing the client was not an option. 

 

“Sheesh,” Neil had said one day. “Would it kill you to show a little bit of emotion once in a while?”

 

Eva just snapped at him, telling him to mind his own business and to screw off and find someone else to annoy.

 

But he just kept pressing on and on and on.

 

(Funny, considering how much she pressed on him and never even got a response.)

 

Sighing, Eva gave in and began to talk, fearing that he would change his view on her (why did she care? She shouldn’t care about  how he felt about her he was just stupid - )

 

He didn’t judge her at all.

  
  
  


**_/Cross my heart and hope to die - Taking this one step at a time - Got your back if you got mine-/_ **

 

Then that particular case came up. Their client wished to be an explorer and explore the entire world. Neil, of course, was 100% sure that they could do it. They had been slowly climbing up in rank in the group of workers, and it wouldn’t be long until they were one of the most requested doctors. But this time, it didn’t go so well.

 

Neil remembers specifically how Eva crossed her fingers as she put on the helmet. Neil couldn’t help but do the same.

 

They weren’t given a lot of time, he remembered. Maybe a day and a couple of hours. For this particular person, he didn’t have a lot of mementos for some reason, and it made it all that much harder. It was apparent that the patient’s condition was slowly deteriorating due to how memories were always glitching out,  how everything turned red and shook, and how things were slowly fading out of existence. Eva had to stop Neil from falling out of a memory and going back to a past one. 

 

But then Neil could practically hear the patient’s heart monitor going haywire. He forced a system shut down and got the two out of there before the patient could flatline. If they didn’t they would go back in. But no one had ever been inside of a patient when they flatlined - they said that the damage to the brain would be horrible. 

 

But Eva was dead set on going back inside, determined to get through the memories and have the patient’s wish fulfilled.

But then the patient flatlines, and everything stopped.

 

They had failed.

 

Eva looked as if she was going to scream, and Neil was in shock. They always succeeded in making wishes come true! Why didn’t it work this time? They were so close - 

 

The family assured them that no, it wasn’t their fault that they weren’t given much and that it was fine.

 

(Neil didn’t care that Eva was acting aloof - no way in hell.)

 

(But maybe he did.)

 

(Just a little.)

 

When he confronted her about how she was acting off and looked on the verge of tears, she revealed that she had some form of Atychiphobia, which (Neil had to google this in secret) is the fear of failure. It made sense for a girl like her - someone so nitpicky and needing everything to be perfect so that she didn’t fail.

 

Neil understood. And quite frankly, he didn’t care. 

 

(He would never admit this - but no matter what Eva had, he was willing to do anything for the queen of nothing at all.)

  
  


**_/One foot in front of the other… All that we have is each other! One foot in front of the other./_ **

 

Eva noticed that Neil and her were getting closer and closer as the days passed.

 

Even their normal bickering and arguing was dying down a bit. Neil had visited her house a couple of times unannounced and she did the same, and sometimes they would curl up on the couch and watch a movie (never horror, Neil exclaimed the first time they watched a movie. Why, is the amazing Neil afraid of scary movies, Eva had teased.)

 

(His silence spoke volumes.)

 

The point was that they always stuck together - through thick and thin, through all the puzzles and thinking and sewing things together, when it came down to it, they were an unstoppable team with amazing chemistry. They were still moving up in the ranks of the workers, and were currently the 3rd most requested for. 

 

But as long as they stuck together, everything would fine.

 

Everything would be fine.

 

One foot in front of the other, and they would be fine.

  
  


**_/Not a soul on the road, not a star in the sky - It's a desert in my heart, and I know where to hide. I'm your king of nothing at all… And you're my queen of nothing at all/_ **

 

There was a certain moment in time when Neil accidentally called her ‘my queen of nothing at all’ and Eva remembers it like it was yesterday.

 

They were having their normal, hourly argument when Eva retorts, “whatever. You’re still the king of absolutely nothing at all. And an annoying one, at that.”

 

“Yeah, but then that would mean that you’re my queen of absolutely nothing at all.” Eva assumed he meant you’re ‘the’ queen, but it just slipped out. But he kept a straight face while saying it, and after saying it, making Eva’s face erupt into a bright, bright blush that probably wasn’t natural.

 

She left the office in a huff, hiding her face with her hands.

  
  


**_/Well, out here in the dust if you don't have trust - Ain't nothing left of us, this is the exodus -They're just testing us, they can't flex with us -They can't mess with us, they can't mess with us!/_ **

 

Even though they bickered and bickered and bickered, they trusted each other a whole lot. Their teamwork was described as extraordinary and soon, they were the most requested pair in the entire building out of 70 workers! It was rather odd, considering that they (and by they, it meant Eva) hated each other at first, but they slowly warmed up to one another, and now they were rather inseparable. They even had their own little sign to each other for either comforting purposes or just teamwork purposes - before they went in to do the job, they would cross their fingers and softly bump them against one another.

 

Neil crashed Eva’s place later that day with a cake, candles, a bottle of wine and balloons, blasting ‘we are the champions’ from his phone. She couldn’t contain her soft giggles as he set the cake on her island. 

 

“To teamwork!” He had exclaimed, chugging down a glass of wine. Eva had taken a sip as well, giggling quietly to herself at Neil’s antiques. She knew he could be annoying sometimes… but when worse came to worse, he was always there for her, and he was always there for her. She downed another glass of wine, humming to herself as Neil began to dance around, and he eventually took her by the waist and they started dancing together as Neil sung loudly.

 

(He ended up throwing up in the toilet later on.)

 

But they walked into the company building the next day, Neil cheering about how he was ‘so hungover’ and how it was worth it because ‘the king and queen of nothing at all were actually the king and queen of something after all.’

 

(He was probably still a little drunk, Eva concluded as she hid her red face in her hands.)

 

“Shut up, Neil! You’re going to get your stupid ass kicked out of here!”

 

**_/Oh, through the wilderness… How come even together there can be loneliness?/_ **

 

And then the strange case of Johnny came up. The protestors had started a couple of days before that, and even when they walked outside to go to the company car, the protesters were there, shouting loudly and holding up signs and cursing and throwing tin cans. 

 

Neil remembered how Eva immediately grabbed onto his sleeve tightly, looking at the crowd nervously. He didn’t say anything about it until they got into the car, where he asked what the hell was up with her (of course he had to ask it like that - he wasn’t about to go all soft on her.). She just told him to shut up and drive. 

 

He left that alone immediately.

 

Johnny was a peculiar man. His memories were filled with this mood of grief and sadness and this strange feeling that left Neil rather uncomfortable. None of the two spoke a lot; it seemed like the mood was affecting both of them. Even when they were together, they didn’t feel truly… together. It was lonely. Empty. And Neil didn’t like that. He tried his best not to show how upset he was by this as they traversed through the memories and saw how things were getting worse and worse and worse-

 

And then they were on top of the damn lighthouse and his damn Acrophobia just-

 

Honestly, that was probably the first time Eva had seen Neil cry.

 

It was a loud, ear piercing wail that she had expected to come from him. It was just silent, quiet tears and it startled her. He was shaking from head to toe, and he wasn’t even looking in her direction. Eva’s stomach did a 360 as she spoke quietly.

 

“What…? You were actually really afraid up there?” 

 

(She didn’t want to yell.)

 

And when he nodded, she didn’t even judge. She just hugged him around the waist (damn height difference) and tried to reassure him (now that they were on the ground and everything was fine it was just fine).

 

(She tried to ignore the way her heart ached.)

 

**_/Oh, our heart's a mess! But it's our only defense to brave the wilderness/_ **

 

The first time Neil saw Eva cry was after driving home from the long, exhausting, tiresome job that they had done. Johnny sure was something - that job left him with his fair share of horrible thoughts (but let’s face it - many of the jobs left him with horrible thought an hour or two after), but he didn’t pay attention to Eva until he could hear small sniffles to his right. Against his better judgement, he whipped his head to the side immediately when they hit a red light, causing his partner to flinch.

 

He didn’t even judge.

 

He just silently reached for her hand and took it, squeezing it reassuringly.

 

When she didn’t let go, he assumed it was fine.

  
  


**_/Cross my heart and hope to die - Taking this one step at a time. I got your back if you got mine/_ **

  
  


To say that Eva and Neil were getting closer was a bit of an understatement. 

 

They almost did everything together now - they were practically inseparable. They would crash each other’s houses, maybe invite them out for a few drinks (well that was Neil - he can’t be trusted to do anything normally, let alone text like a normal person), they would hang out outside of work, call each other occasionally - honestly, they were too close for this to be considered a regular friendship.

 

When Roxie teased them about it, they got all red-faced and claimed that they were just very close friends- nothing more, nothing less.

 

(Eva pretended her heart wasn’t about to burst out of her chest.)

 

(Neil pretended that his stomach wasn’t doing flip flops.)

 

(They tell each other almost everything - but the only thing they didn’t tell each other was their feelings.)

  
  


**_/In the so-called Land of the Free - One foot in front of the other!/_ **

 

Then the Christmas party came! The entire building was buzzing with laughter, color and happiness, making Neil’s heart feel warm and making a smile appear on Eva’s face. She played his stupid game, he was very excited about said stupid game, and it just felt  _ right.  _

 

It was like there were no protestors outside. Everything was fine. Everything was alright. No problems whatsoever.

 

At least, that’s how Neil felt when he was with Dr. Eva Rosalene.

 

As the party continued on, as the DJ blasted music and as people danced, Neil found the queen of nothing at all standing by the punch bowl, watching with amusement as everyone dance around, laughing loudly and having a good time.

 

“Hey queen, what are you up to?” Neil asked, sliding up to her and bumping her softly on the hip. She rolled her eyes, but there was a smile on her face. Normally, she would’ve scoffed and told him to go away, but perhaps the Christmas feeling was making her feel all warm and fuzzy on the inside as well.

 

“You know me - just hanging around.”

 

(He pretended that his cheeks didn’t heat up when she softly grasped his sleeve.)

 

“Perhaps I could ask you-” He started, but he faltered when everyone stopped and looked at them, some laughing, some smirking, and some gaping. The two looked at each other, rather confused, before Roxie scared and pointed upwards towards the ceiling. 

 

Oh- hi there mistletoe!

 

**_/Don’t you know - all that we have is each other?/_ **

 

Eva squeaked in surprise, her face turning red as Neil turned away, clearing his throat. Did they really had to do this? Oh god-

 

(Hey, it was a free chance to kiss her, he thought excitedly.)

 

“So… are we doing this?” He asked nervously as everyone around them shouted ‘kiss!’. Neil tugged at his collar, blushing brightly as he fumbled with anything he could get his hands on. Saying he was nervous was an understatement. “Y-y’know, we d-don’t have to do this if y-you don’t want to-”

 

Before it happened, he saw everything they had been through together. The first moments where Eva probably hated him, but how she warmed up to him and how adorable she was. And then when they were announced the most asked for pair and how her eyes lit up - and how they got through every single memory together with teamwork and how they did everything together - how they got through Jhonny’s ordeal together. How she looked so concentrated and how she perked up whenever putting a piece of the puzzle together in any client’s memory and how he annoyed her on purpose - how did she not-

 

“Shut up, Neil Watts.” Eva hisses - but this time, it lacked its regular malice.

 

**_/One foot in front of the other!/_ **

  
That kiss was  _ electric. _

**Author's Note:**

> this took 3 days


End file.
